Demon Dynasty

1. Hibberd, Vince, Hunt, Bugg (1... maybe), Multiples (maybe) ...Pedders, Tracc, Jeffy, Watts 2. Ideally a combo of mostly Frost and cameos from T-Mac 3. Pedders doing the bulk with resting cameos (i hope) from Watts and probably a few minutes from Frosty thrown in to mix it up and give both a chop out. 4. Bombres by 3 to 6. 5. None of the above

Is there any way of listening to this game or has the AFL/VFL killed this free to air option off as well?

Did they have hot water running Tony?

Hopefully too fast, mobile AND finish in front of goal LH

Yes that is true of last year actually. Brain fade. What is this stick you are referring to OD? At this stage it feels more like we are on the receiving end of a nasty red hot poker or a cattle prod!

I usually suffer from at least one of those at some point during the season BB.... ?

Is that a good thing BBO I tended to like his size up forward as when he hit a pack....he hit! Wise words there. Will gypsy see the light I wonder!

Sorry you were of course referring to JKH OD. My mistake. I don't disagree at all re the standard of his game last week and where he may sit. Where I do differ is the chopping and changing of bringing 'any' player in for only one game then throwing him out the next week, regardless of how he performed In his first entre' (unless he kept tunnel balling or kicking the ball in the oppositions direction or something bizzare like that lol). Also team match ups / venue might mean he is horses for courses one week but not the next. I get that. But otherwise what's the point of bringing a player in if you aren't going to back him and your own initial decision and give him a decent run in order to settle, come up to AFL speed/match fitness and show something? (that the match committee/FD must have seen or known ....things that we don't!??). If he (or anyone else) continues to under perform in the next match or two (provided it's not one week in isolation in a first up match coming in from Casey) then by all means they should be looked at for someone in better form, if there is that someone. Sadly OD we have just about used our entire stock of players that 'might' be capable of playing 'OK' at AFL level now and running out of depth options. Cant recall a lucky year or two at this club in this regard, outside of our last 2 GF appearance years.

He did have an off game for his standards OD but this season and last he tracks top 10 for mine. I personally don't think you drop a young inexperienced player who is easily in our best 10 players after one ordinary match but that's just me. I doubt they would do it with Tracc and I still have Stretch rated slightly above him at this point. Tracc obviously closing in quickly. ANB was the obvious omission for mine just ahead of a Stretch/Harmes. Harmes I don't disagree with as much as the Stretch omission.

That is true Mr Leg but would rather see the selection committee back their original decision to play him and give him at least a 2 to 3 window of opportunity to show how far he has come, if at all, before being looked at for omission. Stretch was ahead of both ANB and JKH last week except clearances and tackles vs ANB. Definitely unlucky and one of the few key outside link men in some of our more 'cleaner' forward entries on a good day, which is most games. One off week and he is out. The essendrug selection committee must have been over the moon with that one. Already have issues on the outside and we have paired back with one less quality outside ball user and spreader.

We are too slow through the mid field across the ground Praha and over use hand ball, even when we get into a little space and are able to put a quick kick towards or inside 50 quickly, we tend to go for the hand ball when completely uneccesary. There are a few exceptions but just not often enough to result in a better functioning and more damaging forward line. Oliver, Harmes/Stretch (Ommitted) and Tracc about the only ones who are able to break away into a bit of space on occasions playing around the mid. Hibberd (last week) and Hunt much better at getting it in quickly off HB. If we don't fix the one paced mid field or over use of handball we will have become one of the slowest, if not THE slowest ball moving team (in terms of getting it inside 50 from centre square bounces and stoppages ) in the AFL. Not to be confused with decent transition speed with entries off HB.

O-Mac should have been a direct swap for Melk. I don't see what that "In" does for us without Melk being the direct swap 'Out'. Mind you I don't have a preference for either, both ordinary backmen at this point whose output and value is about at the same level, just wouldn't have "both" in the same back line. Bugg for ANB was a lay down IMO even though ANB was in reasonably good form until last week's horribilis. Needs to eliminate the ugly turnovers and random momentum changing brain fades before I would have him back in the team. Stretch did lose the tackle count 3 (13th) vs 8 (1st) last week and clearances 4 (3rd) vs 1 (11th) but that's it (stretch not there to rack up clearances obviously). However, Stretch usually has ANB covered even when off his best. And being an inexperienced player he is going to have the odd 'off' game by his standards. A few more stats from last week..... Effective disposals - Stretch 14, ANB 11 Disposal Efficiency - Stretch 73.7% (Ranked 10th) ANB 52.4% (Ranked 21st) Clangers - Stretch 1 (16th) ANB 5 (3rd) IMO Stretch is a critical player in a team which has too many out of form inside and inside/outside, one paced, players who have trouble hitting targets especially by foot, and where most have very little burst speed to get away from their opponent and congestion. An important critical outside link player who makes good decisions and hits targets regularly. We have very few of these running around with the exception of Watts when he plays up the field and Salem. Pedders and Hannan needed in ruck (Pedders) and up forward for Spencil & Hogan. Not much choice and seems best of all available options.

I agree track. We lose one of our best link men and most effective ball users. Better to swap an ordinary player in Melk down back with another in O-Mac. Shld hav been ANB for Bugg. We will get pantsed

Makes sense. Thanks Melon

Lol my bad. It's been a big day ? ? ?

He was on the bench from at least 15 min mark in the last (approx) for at least 7/8 minutes before they could get him back on I believe. Not sure about the zero stat situation in last. Someone else might enlighten. Maybe off for most of the last with a niggle or just told to hard tag Dusty when on etc

Yes I am clutching at straws OD. I wonder what the selection committee are mulling over. Tough week at the round table I would think.

Personally think Salem is best suited there and/or a little time playing an outside mid role pushing forward OD. Don't think he really has a defensive mindset (or the tank?) to close down space quickly enough/for long enough during a match when we don't have the ball. Seems to be able to hit targets by foot pretty well which is severely lacking when we come inside 50. Watts probably our best here as another option (assuming he is not spending 70% of time or more rucking). Do we take a huge gamble on King OD? Feel free to call me crazy but if you could just hear me out for 1 minute after you (and others) finish laughing out loud ☺️ We give him 2 very simple roles..... 1: In for the majority (but obviously not all) centre square bounces only, to compete in the air and try to break even wherever possible. No around the ground work at all! ; and 2: He then bolts immediately to the goal square (give or take 10 meters or so) for the remainder apart from rest time on the bench of course (say about 7 to 10 min at end of each quarter) to offer a a tall target and try and bring the ball to ground a few times? Maybe even clunk a mark or two if lucky. If we don't, we are going to be horribly short up forward now with Hogan's unfortunate forced absence. And...outside of Jeffy, we don't really have any other mosquitos that can hit the scoreboard often enough to worry the opposition if they play reasonably tall down back.

Heartfelt condolences to Jesse and his family, friends and relatives. Will no doubt leave a deep scar and could also impact on his health in the short term if not careful. Hard to see the light in such troubled times. All the best and hang in there big fella.

I agree with that sentiment WA but who is in better form that can play a mid field role inside/outside and take Dom's place at the moment who is also not under an injury cloud? I'm 'Buggered' if I know.... OH...wait!

Just thought i would throw this weighted stats comparative data in to the mix now we are 5 rounds in. Using public AFL stats is always fraught with many flaws and should never be used to judge where anyone is at absolutely & in isolation, but just an interesting comparison this year to last to see how players are tracking using the exact same method and formula. The weighted score includes things like clangers, goals, rebound 50s, inside 50s, contested marks, effective disposals, tackles etc and has been fairly accurate at getting most of the best players on the day in some sort of rough similar order to how they actually went (ruckmen excluded) with occasional anomalies, which is to be expected. Have not included hit outs as this is usually only isolated to 2 or 3 players and no way of carving out 'hit outs to advantage' from public stats so take no notice of full time ruckmen rankings as they are badly skewed. Watts being severely impacted here of late obviously and Maxy would have easily finished in our top 5 or so last year of course. What it does show though is how they went in other areas of the match vs others but of course with much less time and energy to spend. A big disadvantage obviously for someone like Watts. What a huge jump from Clarry, Salem, Kent, Hunt, Jeffy and ANB in particular vs 2016. Viney a fair way off his 2017 average and Tyson a long way off to this point (pre season woes?). Jones was quite close to Clarry before his Rnd 5 performance against the Tiges. 2017 Average Weighted Score / Ranking (to Rnd 5) Clayton Oliver 5.40 1 Nathan Jones 4.89 2 Bernie Vince 4.04 3 Jack Viney 3.89 4 Christian Salem 3.89 5 Billy Stretch 3.81 6 Jordan Lewis 3.55 7 Dean Kent 3.43 8 Alex N-Bullen 3.39 9 James Harmes 3.38 10 Jayden Hunt 3.38 10 Christian Petracca 3.33 12 Tom McDonald 3.24 13 Jesse Hogan 3.11 14 Jack Watts 3.07* 15 Dom Tyson 3.01 16 Jeff Garlett 2.89 17 Neville Jetta 2.73 18 Sam Frost 2.68 19 Oscar McDonald 2.57 20 Jake Melksham 2.55 21 Angus Brayshaw 2.51 22 Mitchell Hannan 1.81 23 Max Gawn 1.69* 24 Sam Weideman 1.13 25 2016 Average Weighted Score / Ranking inclusive (to Rnd 21) Nathan Jones 4.60 1 Jack Grimes 4.50 2 Jack Viney 4.17 3 Dom Tyson 4.15 4 Bernie Vince 3.76 5 Matt Jones 3.52 6 Tom McDonald 3.46 7 Clayton Oliver 3.33 8 Tomas Bugg 3.24 9 Jack Watts 3.23* 10 Billy Stretch 3.08 11 Christian Salem 2.98 12 Neville Jetta 2.97 13 Lynden Dunn 2.94 14 James Harmes 2.92 15 Dean Kent 2.90 16 Christian Petracca 2.88 17 Jesse Hogan 2.83 18 Ben Newton 2.80 19 Oscar McDonald 2.77 20 Ben Kennedy 2.76 21 Heritier Lumumba 2.75 22 Max Gawn 2.72* 23 Angus Brayshaw 2.72 24 Joshua Wagner 2.68 25 Jayden Hunt 2.63 26 Aaron Vandenberg 2.60 27 Cameron Pedersen 2.51* 28 Viv Michie 2.33 29 Jeff Garlett 2.25 30 Colin Garland 2.10 31 Alex Neil-Bullen 1.98 32 Sam Frost 1.89 33 Sam Weideman 1.80 34 Chris Dawes 1.78* 35 Only players who have played at least 2 or more matches are shown. I have not included Tim Smith or Spencil in 2017 stats as neither have played out 2 full matches to this point, both being injured very early on in their 2nd match. *Skewed as no hit out stats included. Eg., Maxy would obviously be rated much higher than 23 for 2016 and Watts somewhat higher for both 2016, 2017 etc.

This one.....

Our 4 core mids are all inside biased and IMO lack the agility or burst speed to escape congestion often enough when the ball is won from the inside. Clarry somewhat of an exception here. Results in just another stoppage and not enough yardage gained quickly enough or directly out of the middle to allow our forwards to compete one on one very often. Many of our extractions also end up going backwards or lateral looking for a free player rather than giving to a quick burst outside or inside/outside mid who can go directly forward. A Danger, a Dusty, Sloane, or a Brad Hill type badly needed I reckon. Yes I know they don't grow on trees! We also over do the hand ball which hasn't helped with getting enough quick and direct entries IMO. Clarry the biggest offender and the other 3 core mids not far behind. Kick to handball was ugly on weekend especially given the wet weather. Saty mentioned a few weeks back that they had Viney training to try and improve his burst speed so this might be a sign that the FD is concerned here also and trying to correct the deficiency. I tend to think it's more a personnel problem though rather than working to try and improve what we have. Need to get ourselves an outside or outside/inside beast for next season. Time to trade.

Maybe via a mid season draft Jerry? Long overdue i reckon